Rates & Barrels - 2022 Catcher & UT-only Review

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Eno and DVR discuss the 2022 catcher and utility-only hitter pool. If two-catcher leagues remain a standard, should you push for top-end talent at the position in the early rounds? Can Yasmani Grandal stay healthy with less time behind the plate? Was there enough value in the middle and later rounds for second catchers? On the UT-only side, is there anything left for Shohei Ohtani to unlock? And, can J.D. Martinez adjust his approach and get to more consistent pull-side power? Rundown 6:11 A Plea for One-Catcher Leagues 11:49 2022 Bust: Yasmani Grandal 14:09 Strong Returns Overall From Early Catchers 19:10 Prioritizing Top-End Options? 27:41 Finding Value Later 35:06 Other Catchers of Interest? 39:42 Shohei Ohtani's Brilliant 2022 Campaign 49:42 Bryce Harper Joins UT-only Club; Surgery On Tap 52:08 Can J.D. Martinez Get to 25+ Homers Again? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $1/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels Podcast Apple: http://bit.ly/AppleRandB Spotify: http://bit.ly/SpotifyRandB Google: http://bit.ly/RatesGoogle Stitcher: http://bit.ly/STRandB TuneIn: http://bit.ly/RBTuneIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Treat yourself to Tim's new Fudge Brownie Lattes, made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice-chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced, only at Tim's. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Tuesday, November 22nd. Derek Van Riper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we wrap up our 2022 Positional Review Series. We are looking at catchers and UT only players. It's nice to have the end of the series here, you know, because as we've kind of

joked for a few weeks, it means we're closing in on starting the preview series probably in January. Not really something we're doing like immediately after reviews. We're actually taking a break next week, one week off. Yeah, and then I think we'll hopefully have a whole bunch of news you

know one thing that happened this year with the lockout is everything got squeezed so you know we were like playing baseball into like the awards week almost you know it got it got a little hairy there um and I think that's why there's been a relative lack of news right now is because somebody has to take a time off sometime you know like So everyone's sort of taking some time off. And I expect that the winter meetings will be pretty interesting. There have been a bunch of non-tenders that are decent players like Cody Bellinger and Luke Voigt. There are a bunch of teams,

but you know, there's four big shortstops. I expect them to sort of take the longest, but there's still all shortstops. I expect them to sort of take the longest, but there's still all these players around that that can sign. And I think generally the playoff structure was a success in that teams that tried did well, the Padres and Phillies as examples. And then also it just,

it seemed to incentivize teams to try before we even got to the playoffs in terms of people wanting to win the division, you know, and thinking that was a legitimate incentive to do something more than just be like, I'm going to build an 89 winwin team and call it quits. You saw the Dodgers try to get better. You saw the Yankees try to get better.

You saw a lot of teams that actually tried to win the division. The Mets spent a bunch of money, etc. So I think the playoff strategy ended up being a success. And because of that, I expect the M expect the mets for example not to set on their laurels and think oh a wild card be fine you know i think they'll want to win the division yeah and i've thought more about this new format and i've wondered if once we have expansion because it seems inevitable that we will get two new teams added i don't know at some point maybe in the next 10 years like if we're looking ahead and if i say it's november of 2032 are there 32 teams by 2032 i

would probably vote or bet yes in that case i think it's more likely than not i think franchise fees bring a lot of money into the pockets of current owners they're going to want money when don't they but this is a window where timing wise too it's been a little while since we've had expansion getting to 32 might actually actually get us back to two divisions in each league. That could also be the other change. That's the change I would like to see accompany two new expansion teams, two eight-division teams in each of the American and National League. I also think that we can afford it talent-wise. I know that there's some people who say, oh, we can't even field good pitching

staffs right now, and I disagree. I think that right now the third and fourth best reliever on good teams could close for most teams 20 years ago. We're talking about

somebody like Jonathan Loaizaga I know i think it'd be a club would have been a great closer 20 years ago you know um and so that to me means that we can afford a little bit of expansion uh that's more jobs for the players uh it's more markets for more tv markets for baseball in general, a chance to grow it. You know, there are regions like the region between Charlotte and Durham right there that are doing really well financially,

are growing, are young regions that aren't necessarily, yes, they sort of Braves fans now, but they're not so solidly Braves fans that they couldn't be a fan of a new team. And so I'm generally a fan of expansion. I'm annoyed that it has to wait for Tampa and Oakland to get new stadiums

because Manfred has to hold those places hostage. And so he needs those expansion areas as places where they could move those teams, Oakland and Tampa. And so that's annoying to me because I'm not a big fan. Most of the data says that giving teams stadiums for free is not what the taxpayers want. If you want, check out JC Bradbury's feed. He even convinced me that, as I thought the San Diego one was a win, but he pointed out that things like the new light rail that the taxpayers had to pay for after the stadium was so successful that the gas lamp grew bigger, they had to go back to the taxpayers and ask for a $200 million light rail. So you actually have to add that into any sort of math that you're doing. The infrastructure costs are bared by the

taxpayers as well. So as you grow, you lead to more infrastructure costs. That leads to more taxpayer out of the taxpayer's pocket. So really interesting stuff from JC Bradbury on that. And I'm just generally not a fan of giving teams money for stadiums. Yeah, I'm right there with you. And I think JC's work explains in clear detail why that's a stance that makes a lot of sense. Let's get to our catcher review. It's a position that every single year for the last three or four years, I have suggested we should shrink it.

We should go from... Eliminate it. Is it like kickers in football? No, it's not that bad. It's not that bad. And I'm not even on the get rid of kickers. I'm more of the, hey, a 50 yard field goal shouldn't be worth five fantasy points. It's worth three real life points.

It should be worth three actual fantasy. Get the scoring right. Yeah. Just be reasonable with your kicker scoring. Why do we need two starting catchers in fantasy baseball when there's pretty clearly one starting catcher per team? fantasy baseball when there's pretty clearly one starting catcher per team. That is exactly where I'm coming from. And I know the argument I get the most when I put this out there, and it's an annual thing. It's a tradition, right?

It's like, oh, it's Thanksgiving. I must complain about the two catcher format. And I've said this before. Bearing of the grievances. Yeah, yeah. I will play. I will play your two catcher league. I don't care if the NFBC and Tout Wars, Labor, whatever, whatever league we're in, TGFBI, if the rules are two-catchers, I'll live with it.

I'm not going to sit here and complain about it. I put this out there as food for thought because many people listening are either the commissioner of their league or they at least have the ear of the commissioner for their league. And they think about how to play the game in a way that is the most fun. for their league and they think about how to play the game in a way that is the most fun the pushback is always it makes it easier to only have one catcher and my point would be well you don't have to eliminate the spot completely you could just make the second catcher spot a second utility spot you could take away the catcher spot and add a pitcher spot to make it 13 and 10 instead of 14 and 9 you don't have to make the roster smaller and make the game air quotes easier so the other part of the argument is that finding the best second catcher is not the most fun way to show off how smart you are there are more interesting ways to find value than digging through the pile of second catchers and trying to find the guy that either just plays a lot because he's a slightly better hitter or framer than the other guy or someone who's the beneficiary of an injury because the position gets so torn up by injuries each and every year. But then I know you've talked a lot about on this show, some of the long-term

implications of rule changes and the way the game is played and how that could ultimately shift the way catchers are developed. And maybe that ultimately in several years changes the amount of offensive output that we get from the catcher pool as a whole. i had some interesting news about that uh while down in uh the arizona fall league a scout told me that they had recently um sort of polled players and coaches uh and staff about uh the the options in front of them which were you know status quo or uh auto fully automated balls and strikes, robo-umps as it were, or the newest thing, which is a challenge system, where there's a certain amount of challenges per game. And full robo-umps was a dead last, obviously last, and status quo and the challenge system were in sort of a tie, as I was told.

And that's really interesting because we've seen the challenge system were in sort of a tie as, as I was told. And that's really interesting because we've seen the challenge system, you know, in the minor leagues and it's fast. It does allow for big calls to be reversed. And basically the pitcher and the catcher or the, the hitter can just make a signal to the, to the ump. and they basically play it it's not one of those ones where you're waiting for the manager to review it and and all that thing it's sort of just a direct sort of thing and then they they see it up on the on everyone

sees it up on the board and it's boom it's like the it's more like the tennis thing where uh where they use the same technology hawkeye and uh once there's a challenge they show it up on the board everyone sees the ball bounce everyone sees if it was in or out and uh everyone gets to clap or boo and uh and then move move on quickly that keeps uh things honest uh by the way did you know i i missed this uh my son told this to me, my 10-year-old son told me that someone pitched a perfect game. An umpire pitched a perfect game in the World Series, got every single call correct. I did not see that. Is that from ump scorecards or from one of their sources out there? I don't know how my kid found that. It must have been on the news or something when I wasn't listening.

But anyway, umpires have been getting better as we've been training them. And I think the challenge system could actually just add to another layer of... Right now, they're on the order of 85% to 88%, correct? If I believe the last numbers that I saw. This could push them into the 90s, I believe, and maybe it's not worth upending a sort of special relationship between pitcher, pitcher, catcher, and umpire that exists right now,

a skill that's valued on the open market and framing, and a certain market status quo when it comes to catchers. Maybe it's not worth upending all that for the extra sort of 4% to 6%, especially if the challenge system gets the biggest calls correct. You know what I mean? Because you're going to save those for like, oh, I don't want to strike out in the eighth inning on a pitch that was wrong. That's the ones we remember.

So anyway, in that case, I think it's mostly relevant. One of the biggest busts this year, probably, in the catcher market was Yosemite Grandal, who was picked 100th, basically, was supposed to be one of the top six catchers or so, ended up with negative value. A lot of it was, you know, all of it was because his bat and in terms of his framing runs, which according to aging curves, age fairly gracefully, he was still a very good framer. Maybe not as good as he was in his peak with the Dodgers, but still a really good framer. I think he'll still be a starting catcher and then hopefully when these health things get resolved that held him to such a poor batting line, I could see him putting up maybe 400 play-to-pins his next year with a sort of 230 average and 15 to 17 homers.

homers probably not a number one catcher anymore but he might be a good pick for that dreaded number two catcher that you've been talking about oh if you're going to make me draft two catchers yes money grandal is still very rosterable i think in your more common you know 10 team single catcher leagues the espn yahoo leagues that a lot of people play in he might be a more difficult player to roster i do think there's a thing happening with the roster for the White Sox that could make it easier for Grandal to stay healthy, and that is the expected departure of Jose Abreu. I know the Padres, as AJ Preller, I'm sure,

is like brining a turkey and working feverishly to try and add more to that roster. They have been linked to Abreu as a priority free agent for them. So if you take Abreu out of the playing time mix for the White Sox, I think you have Andrew Vaughn kind of in that first base DH role. But I think you could also get defensive help behind the plate, get a catcher that works with Grandal, take a lot of pressure off of his legs and let him work more in that first base DH mix. Because when he's healthy, he's still a good

hitter. I just think it's been a massive number of injuries that really reduced his effectiveness here over the past year plus now. But prior to this, he was so consistent year over year. That OBP especially was like a middle of the order sort of OBP. As far as this position goes, the top actually was pretty good. I think Salvador Perez was a player that was easy for me to avoid, even though there were some interesting stories written about changes he had made

that made it possible for him to put together a 2021 season that was honestly so far above where I thought his ceiling was. It was a shocking season. I hope it's the kind of season that even five or ten years from now we still think about as an all-time great offensive catcher season because it really was. I just thought getting him at the 2-3 turn around pick 30 of a 15-team league,

that was too steep when I thought the categorical balance you got from JT Real Mudo and even a similar sort of projection with a better average from Will Smith was going to be there 15 or 20 picks later. So I didn't think Sal Perez was going to be bad. I just didn't think he was going to do enough to be worth that pick. And that's kind of how it played out. He was a $15 player. And if you drafted him up that high, it probably't ruin you but there were better ways to use that pick on draft day yeah yeah i mostly avoided that pitfall uh it makes me think of i know this is a total non-sequitur but it's catcher util day and you know we may not uh have a full slate of information or players to deal with anyway. So I'm going to allow myself this one, this work off of the rundown.

But Sal Perez reminds me a little bit of the discourse around Jeremy Pena. Jeremy Pena. And the reason I mention this is because Chris Crawford wrote a great piece about how Jeremy Pena, there were some warning signs.

And in particular, a really bad chase rate, which is something we talk about here a lot. And it's something that we saw even in, I thought uh even when he was going well uh especially in the seattle series there was a couple times where he really they got him chasing uh sliders down off the bottom of the zone a lot um you can see it just in his walk and strikeout rates you know a four percent walk rate to a 24 strikeout rate that's not something

that you really want to hang your hat on. But Sal Perez has often had that sort of a profile. His defense keeps him on the field, and then he's over time, you know, added the ability to just slug the crap out of the balls he does connect with. And I think Crawford, Chris Crawford was talking a little bit about that sort of opportunity for Pena to improve, even while the approach is a little bit rough. I think projecting Pena is going to be really interesting. The projections say he's just basically going to do the same thing again, but he's just coming off a World Series MVP.

The inflation is going to be there. And I think it may end up being something where I miss out on Jeremy Pena 2.0 because of years of looking at Sal Perez and looking at players with bad chase rates and stuff like that. But I also have two shares of Jeremy Pena in keeper leagues where I'm really stuck because then, you know, do I sell high or do I hold? So that was a digression, but mostly I did fairly well.

I think this year I did end up with a couple of Grandal shares, but what I tried to do was get Real Muto, Smith, or Wilson Contreras as my number one. I wanted to get one good number one that I believed in. And then I waited a long time and usually got my number two in the early 200s, where it was a good year to go shopping. In the early 200s and the late 100s, you got Alejandro Kirk, Christian Vasquez, Elias Diaz, Sean Murphy, Travis Darnot, Gary Sanchez, Adley Rutschman. The average contribution from that group was north of $5. I think that's fine for a number two catcher. It gets a lot worse than that. Yeah. So it's pretty messed up because I think the massive injuries that occur at catcher, they're so random. The position is just

a constant occupational hazard. So I feel like aside from minor injuries that pop up, there's also that elevated risk of a devastating injury, which has been reduced with the new home plate rules from 8 or 10 years ago. It's been better for a while. I'm always worried about foul tips and concussions and different things that can knock players out for longer than you'd expect. you'd expect. I keep looking at this position the same way you just described it though, right? Oh, I'm now trying to prioritize someone from the top group because I don't want to lag in playing time. The playing time falls off so hard as you move further and further down the draft board that you could end up with someone who's very productive on a per plate appearance basis, but they just don't give you enough if you wait too long to address the position. So maybe that falls into like Eric Haas, for example, who had catcher and outfield eligibility. You can use players like that sometimes as a second catcher, but if you end up with two guys like that, you come up really, really light in runs and RBIs compared to the teams that actually have at least one of those top-end catchers.

I know some people out there were trying to get two. least one of those top end catchers. I know some people out there were trying to get two. Some people were willing to prioritize two early roster spots on some combination of Real Mudo, Smith, Dalton Varshow, Wilson Contreras. I feel like that might be a little bit too much in a snake draft situation, but when you have the salary cap to work with, it might be a little more viable in drafts like that. I did that in Tout Wars. It worked really well. I didn't do it in any snakes this year. We'll see if that's something that I can actually try and pull off maybe in a draft and hold or something. But I do think your format might dictate whether or not you could actually get two elite catchers and do it without paying a steep price in the form of the opportunity cost.

I don't love the money output because if you can do do it if you just run the auction calculator fangraphs you can just see that the difference between their their raw value you know their value is just a bat and then their positional value once once it's added in is so big that I hate that you're just spending a lot basically on manufactured by the the catcher rule, manufactured position scarcity. And I can see the argument for it. There is value there, but there were four catchers this year that were above average with the bat and were qualified batters and only five catchers that were qualified batters this year. So that's spending a lot of money on not many plate appearances, if you know what I mean. But if we take out the qualified filter that I think

there and just sort by plate appearances, you had Sean Murphy with 612. He was the only one over 600. You had another four with 500. And then you had another 14 with 400 and i would really love to get two out of that 14 because once you start getting under 300 uh you know once you get to 23rd in the big leagues jose trevino yes worth rostering last year uh but 354 plate appearances and seven home and and and 11 home runs it's just not the end like 39 runs and 43 rvi it's just uh it's really poor counting stats so i want to get two of the top 14 uh but i would love to get like 5 and 14 you know like that's how i want to spend yeah there's a few gifts in the pool for us right now. Dalton Varshow played enough games behind the plate in 2022 to qualify the position for at least one more year.

Yeah, he's carrying an early ADP inside the top 50 overall, right around pick 45. It's the second catcher eligible player off the board behind JT Realmuto. Realmuto moved into the Sal Perez seat. He now goes right around pick 30 because you're also getting some stolen base contributions. But part of the reason why I was fully out on Sal at that price, but I'm not necessarily an automatic pass on Real Muto is because of the categorical balance and the batting average situation. It is much different looking at Real Mudo's core skills versus Sal Perez's core skills,

which even though he plays a ton so long as he's healthy, I do think you can find that core set of skills elsewhere in the player pool. There are some first basemen. There are a lot of outfielders that are low average, big power mashers. So I don't want to commit that to my roster in the early rounds with real mudo because the the shape of the way he gets to the 20 25 range even the 30 range it's so different than someone like sal that i'd actually at least consider it depending on other circumstances unfortunately us, that is a gift that we'll keep on giving, but there are not

many gifts behind that. I think in terms of guys that jumped up into somebody I might want to take in the top 100, I think the only other name that comes to mind is Alejandro Kirk. Kirk. Sean Murphy maybe as a sort of 80 to 100. But I think Murphy, Kirk, that might be where I go shopping. Maybe Wilson Contreras. Are those guys by ADP around 80 to 100? Even a little bit cheaper. Wilson Contreras is in that range at 98. And again, it's so early. We've only got 11 drafts in November that we're looking back at. Sean Murphy looks like an early value to me. He looks like the guy that is sort of the, I waited at catcher. I got a guy that plays a lot, that hits the ball hard, that if he stays in Oakland, is in the heart of the order.

And even if he goes to a better team, great. More RBI chances. Moves down in the order, but probably does just fine because he's getting a park team great more rbi chances moves down in the order but probably does just fine because he's getting a park upgrade on top of a supporting cast upgrade i do think prioritizing at least one top seven top eight catcher and murphy belongs in that group for me even though his current adp isn't there that's something i'm definitely going to do it's not totally unlike how i think about trying to get saves and targeting closers where it's like I have to get at least one because if I don't,

I feel like I'm going to get punished. I think you actually get punished worse in the catchers. You can throw some darts with relievers and get a lot luckier I think by comparison than you can in the catcher pool. Maybe we get some prospects that emerge to take on larger roles that are cheap right now.

We don't know if the Angels are going to have a veteran definitely on the roster come opening day along with logan ohapi or if it's going to be some kind of time share you could see a guy like that getting better maybe the jays trade a young catcher like gabriel moreno he could end up somewhere else maybe bo naylor gets a full season in cleveland and then you end up getting 450 plate appearances from someone that doesn't currently look like they have that, but it's really tough to rely on that happening this early in the offseason if you're playing draft and hold.

Where's Sal Perez himself going? Slight discount at pick 65. You basically have a toss-up now for the fourth spot among catchers between Adley Rutschman and Salvador Perez. I just wanted to point out that there's a piece from Dave Cameron

on Fangraphs in 2013. Catcher aging is a curve, not a cliff. He shows that catcher aging is just the same as any other position, which may surprise some people. And part of that might be that framing skills are mostly immune to aging. Um, as I mentioned earlier, uh, but, uh, even offensively, I think they age, um, about the

same as other positions. So Sal Perez, he is 32, but he might be interesting to me, especially if he drops like a round off that ADP. You know, I think I might be looking for my catcher in the sort of 80 to 100 and just try to keep my mind open. If Sal Perez drops to 80 in my draft, then I just say thank you for that. If he doesn't, maybe jump up Sean Murphy once Wilson Contreras goes, because I do not like the drop behind that. Sean Murphy is going to be much more of your traditional catcher. It might be nice to have Alejandro Kirk in there instead of Sean Murphy, but I'm going to be careful that I don't overspend there and just try to catch somebody there. And then I think for my second one, another nice thing is if you do get Alejandro Kirk, that I don't overspend there and just try to catch somebody there.

And then I think for my second one, another nice thing is if you do get Alejandro Kirk, he'll pair nicely with your second catcher is almost definitely going to be somebody that just hits 15 homers and hits 230. It's really hard to do any better. Yes, there was Alejandro Kirk this last year, but in terms of who I see coming up in the ranks, one of my favorite guys later on is Cal Raleigh.

And Raleigh actually led catchers in barrel rate last year. And yes, he strikes out too much. So he is probably one of these 230 hitters with 15 or 20 homers. But, you know, other cheaper guys that did really well in barrel rate are Gary Sanchez, you know, obviously same kind of guy, Christian Betancourt, another similar kind of guy. So, you know, even someone like MJ Melendez looks like he fits into that high barrel rate, high strikeout rate, low batting average category. Yeah, I do think universal DH and then individual roster situations are important for some of the players in this position. Gary Sanchez might be one of those kinds of guys.

Depending on what team he's on and what they have available in the dh spot that could be a path for him even mitch garver guys like that that hit for enough power can get that extra playing time and that could be a pretty big edge if you can figure out who those players are because that's where i think you're going to find a lot of that value after you get through the top 200 cal raleigh is kind of like sean murphy in terms of how the market's treating him right now outside the top 150, but I get the sense people realized how good he was over the course of the year. Whether he got in very late in the playoffs

or in the second half, as soon as you started to look back at the barrel rate as you pointed out, the underlying numbers were all really good. The playing time is really stable for him too. The situation in Atlanta is kind of weird. They still have Travis Darnot. They still have William Contreras.

Both are inside the top 15 in terms of positional ADP right now. And I don't think that's the situation where you'd expect them. I don't see as much DH playing time going to whoever's not catching from that group. And I find that to be a really tricky one to figure out.

Two, three, three 25 guys, you know, in terms of appearances. I mean, maybe that's the best way to keep them both healthy. And the per plate appearance numbers are good. But like I said earlier, I think that just dings you pretty badly in counting stats, especially when you're not getting those guys really, really late. There could be a Marcel Ozuna release in their future. Yeah, but I think they would still try and replace him.

They would still potentially and replace him. They would still potentially either bring in a shortstop and then just float to DH. Yeah, they're not going to cheap out at that spot. They're not like, oh, it'll just be William Contreras and whoever else is a little dinged up or whatever. Yeah, so I'm kind of keeping an eye on what they're doing to see if they trade someone. Little surprise that Tyler Stevenson,

with all the injuries, didn't come down. Above Contreras, above Murphy, above Raleigh, around pick 125. I thought there'd be an injury discount. I like him a lot. I think it's because of the batting average. He's probably a guy who can hit for okay batting average, has a really good hit tool. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking?

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moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton bike or bike plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access membership separate. Terms apply. The player that people liked quite a bit going into 2022 who did slide a little bit is

Kiebert Ruiz. He ended up being almost a $5 player, so it didn't ruin you if you draft him around pick 150, but he's going a couple rounds later. It's a bad situation right now with the Nationals. Clear rebuild, but that might be kind of like what we talked about with Sean Murphy where there's a

high volume of playing time. Now that we have another season, a full season's worth of big league plate appearances from Ruiz. And we look at the quality of the contact. How do you feel about Ruiz's ceiling now compared to how you may have felt about it previously? Because if I remember correctly, you were a little bit of a skeptic about Ruiz when the nationals acquired

him. Yeah, it's funny. I think this is one of those situations where I had no shares in last year because I thought this would be what would happen. You know, like happen you know like oh like okay batting average for a catcher but no power i was a little surprised by the six steals but uh i didn't think he would produce that much value and uh i mean 470 i guess i was wrong that would be a fine second catcher but he was he was going for more expensive than most second catchers like he was going 141

i was trying to get my second catcher like 230 you know what i mean um so i didn't have any shares uh but it's important to keep your mind open in these situations and be like where's he going now 180 yeah so now i like him a little bit more, you know what I mean? Like, as he drops, uh, plus there's a rule change that benefits him. Uh, when I looked, I had plus seven hits for K-Ruiz looking just at last year's spray charts and where people won't be able to play defenders anymore next year.

Um, and so I had an extra seven hits on the board for him, which could bring him to that projected 265 average I don't know if I believe that projected 16 homers but if you're going to give me a 265 270 average from a pull

lefty that makes a ton of contact and if I paired him with Sean Murphy I feel like I would get a lot of playing time, a decent amount of runs in RBI, and I would smush that batting average together and do fine. You know, so like a really lovely duo for me next year. NFBC main competitors are not listening right now because I would love to come away with Sean Murphy and Cabert Ruiz as my one-two. Yeah, I almost think Ruiz is like a younger version

of Christian Vasquez right now where it's like a little bit of speed, an average that might even be good, but probably won't hurt you in that category. Maybe a little bit better than Vasquez because of that strikeout rate, but yeah. In terms of where the five-5 comes from, though, I think that's kind of what I expect him to do. And Vasquez is one of those players I gravitate towards as a second catcher a lot.

I mean, he's a free agent now, right? So could end up in another situation where he plays a ton and he's cheap right now. I would say of the discounted catchers, that's one that I like for draft and hold if you're doing those early drafts now or next month. I listed him as a potential free agent value because the contract crowdsourcing by the Fangraphs readers put him at one year and eight million. And I have him projected as easily a top half starting catcher.

So to get somebody like that for a one year deal, even if it's 10 million, I think there's teams that are going to jump at that. You know, teams that could do that. I think the Astros, I know they just have him. I think, you know, they would have an inside, you know, bet on whether or not he's good the cardinals the giants uh you know the rockies have the by by fangrass have the worst catching situation in baseball um you know the cubs are they going to just go with jan gomes so you know there's uh there are a lot of teams that could sign him. The Brewers right now have Victor Caratini as their starting catcher, which is only the 23rd. If he's in the 23rd best, they might just go with that.

But anyway, those are a bunch of teams that could sign Christian Vasquez and make him their starting catcher tomorrow. Yeah, I think teams see him that way. I don't know if the ADP reflects that right now. So take advantage of it while you can because it probably won't last once that situation is actually clear to everybody. The young catchers in particular, there's a lot of prospect talent coming through. MJ Melendez came up this year and was a $10 player right away. Played enough in the outfield where he qualifies both the catcher and in the outfield to get a little bit of position flexibility.

He exceeded my expectations in part because I thought he would strike out more. I just thought some of the lower level issues he had with strikeouts might present themselves in a greater way upon arrival in the big leagues. But 24.5% from him, and that's right in line with his AAA numbers, only a little bit above what he had done at AA back in 2021. I'm curious what you think the next level might be for him because the slash line is a little underwhelming for a guy that can hit the ball pretty hard and doesn't make bad swing decisions. Yeah, I traded him away and rude the day. Yeah, that barrel rate, chase rate and that barrel rate,

I think portends better batting averages in the future. He does not hit 50% fly ball, so a.258 Babbitt, I think, seems light. Even a projected.268 Babbitt, where is that coming from? They're just giving him catcher speed? I'm not sure that he's bottom-tier catcher speed. In fact, I want to look at his sprint speed now. He's probably not slow because they can play him in the outfield.

Right. 61st percentile for sprint speed. Yeah, that's good for a catcher so i don't i'm not sure that i believe this 268 babbitt which means that you could get a 250 hitter uh with 25 homers and five steals next year at catcher i mean where's his where's his adp he's kind of in that stevenson elevated price range even a little earlier. Right around pick 100 right now. I mean, I'll put him in that mix at 100, and maybe he'll be preferable to some other guys.

But if I can wait 20 picks and get Murphy, it'll be interesting to see what decision I make there. But another guy that I was looking at, you know, that I traded for at one point during last season was Jonah Heim, who had a 262 batting average in the first half and 12 homers, and then a 181 batting average

with four homers in the second half. And that was a little bit difficult to deal with. Unfortunately, the process stats, it's not really clear what happened. He struck out less and walked more in the second half, and his ground ball fly ball mix was about the same. He's pretty pull happy, but as a guy who is a switch hitter and is going to bat lefty, that's not as much of a concern next year. I think Jonah Heim would be a decent guy to put in as your second catcher next year.

Where's his ADP? Yeah, he's got 450 plate appearances this season, and I think he could get that number again, maybe even a tick above depending on a few things that might be out of his control. ADP, right around pick 250. there may have been some injuries also his biggest catching workload in the big leagues

that could have just taken some toll on him but he should be more prepared for that next year and then there's actually a little bit of a sign that there could be more in there he had a 112 max EV the best of his career and his barrel rate got better

again for a third time. What if he takes a little bit of a leap forward in the power department? So there is some upside there that people are going to ignore, I think, for the most part because it was such a terrible second half. Yeah. I mean, a.227,.298,.399 line overall makes it a little easy to look right past him, and I think the playing time is safe because the defense is great. overall makes it a little easy to look right past him and I think the playing time is safe because

the defense is great. The line he had was a league average hitter and he does that with great defense. That plays at this position. Yeah, that's why you get the 450 plate appearance projection, you know, which is, I think, something you want. Should we move on

to the UT only players? There's like five of them. Let's do it. Alright. Shohei Otani is not UT only, but of's like five of them. Let's do it. All right. Shohei Otani is not UT only, but of course, we'll talk about him here because from a hitting perspective, he is UT only. $28, I believe,

was just the hitting value he provided. I think the combined value would have been closer to like 45 to 50 depending on the calculators you want to use. If you were able to accrue

all that value, you had to choose. In a lot of leagues, you had to choose what is he for a particular lineup period. What I found to be really helpful was that in the 15-team NFBC auction championship, where I had Walker Bueller go down with an injury, having Shohei Otani being able to shift him

from UT to pitcher gave me a shot at getting the high quality innings I was expecting from Buehler from someone else. Very hard to find that on the wire. A little easier to find whatever hitting stats you might need I didn't really think about him in that light when I built the team. I just thought he was going to hit for me all the time. And, you know, if I pitched him once or twice because the situation called for it, fine. But he ended up kind of flipping on my roster midseason as my needs on that roster change. And I really liked having that. It's amazing. What that is, is a trade in a league that doesn't allow trades. Right.

You know, you traded Shoyotani, the hitter, for Shoyotani, the pitcher. Yeah, that's super hard to quantify. But I can't give him the full value of just adding hitter and pitcher because it's a weekly league, so you never really got that. But I can give you the first half of him. I can give you half of hitter and half of pitcher, and that still gets you to a $30 player. There are not that many $30 players.

According to this version of the auction category, that's top one or two at a position. So really cool that you were able to use that. I didn't monetize it. Yeah, it's still also a little tricky to pull off the right, to build with that in mind, right? It's like in your head,

when you're counting up how many pitchers do I have and how many hitters do I have, you're still, I don't know, in the draft, right? You don't know. I think you just have to choose one while you're in the draft and then it might be a bonus later. I think you can sort of tell based on how the foundation of the roster comes together.

So I mean, Snake, he's a first round pick. So you don't know in the first round, but depending on what you do, maybe with the next four picks together after round five you should know what your intention is yeah i guess it keeps your options open right because you don't have to like reach for a pitcher in the second round maybe you already got a pitcher right and not knowing you know how many other pitchers are even going to go in the first round this year especially you're sort of saying well let's just see what the board gives me and then i can if i feel like there's better value with bats, I go bats.

If I feel like there's better value with arms, I go arms, and he's going to hit for me. That's fine. So you get that on draft day if you, again, kind of understand that you have different paths you can follow, and then you get it in season as more of an insurance policy. Again, all of this is out the door if he's daily. I have him as a keeper in a daily league

where I can switch him from hitter to pitcher and there's nothing you could give me for him. Do you think he's an angel? 2023, this is one of the big questions of the offseason. Simple yes, no. Is he still a member of the Angels on opening day of 2023? I just feel sorry for Perry Manajian because he takes over this gig,

he gets GMs, you know, he finally gets to be a GM and it's a big deal. And, you know, he got two of the best players in baseball and he's trying to win. I just, you know, now you're like, the GM is fighting probably in conversations to be like, no, give me another shot. Give me one last year.

The owner is probably saying, we want to give... This is how I think owners think. The owner wants to buy. We want a clean balance sheet. I think we saw that with Juan Soto, right? Yeah, I was going to ask, is Soto your best recent evidence of a team that was going to go up for sale, just making it as easy as possible?

The Marlins traded all those guys before the sale, right? They did that before they sold a couple times too, though, right? Yeah, I think that's the general thing. The new ownership doesn't want to come in and sell players. It's not the way you would endear yourself to the fan base to come in and tear everything down. If someone else does that for you,

and then you get to build it back up, you get to be the hero. Yeah. I might have the chances that Otani is traded this offseason higher than most. I think somewhere

between 33% and 50%. Okay. It doesn't really change much about how I would value him. I mean, I think he could theoretically end up in a situation that's more pitcher-friendly. So that's good for his pitching stats. Not quite as good for his hitting stats, but he's a his hitting stats but he's yeah he's a superstar he'll play well yeah yeah right so shifts where

the 40 to 50 dollars worth of value comes from if it's extreme in one direction or another and could he could he end up on a you know in a team that's you know more tech and data friendly than the Angels were. It's not a high bar, is it? No, it's not. But also, everyone has their own private coaches, and so does he. And yeah, I don't... Is somebody going to get more out of him? Could someone convince him to play to play more like hit more i would what else do we want from him he's over 600 played appearances each of the last two seasons

he struck out less than ever in 2022 still drew walks at a 10.8 clip the barrel rate 16.8 was still excellent second best of his career the the area of his game where i didn't think he had another level but it was compared to what he does as a hitter the pitching side right i didn't think he had the command to be as good as he was as a pitcher in 2022 i just didn't think that was possible i didn't think we'd get a 233 era and a 101 win 22. I just didn't think that was possible. I didn't think we'd get a 233 ERA and a 101 win. It's still not his best facet. I know his walk rate looks good, but he just basically outstuffed people. He wasn't a finesse guy.

It's working for him for now. 100%. Yeah, there's nothing. I have nothing to really throw at you that's negative other than like it took him 15.7 seconds to throw the ball with no runners on and there's a 15 second clock like i'm right i'm writing a piece uh about that for for an athletic fantasy project and uh uh i couldn't even put him on the list of players affected by the pitch clock it's like i'm not gonna put him on a list of players affected by the pitch clock. I'm not going to put him on a do not draft list because he's 0.7 seconds slow.

I think we can deal 0.7 seconds can be managed. Yeah. We can train for that. And I think similarly, like there is no, there is no park that he goes to where I'm like, Oh, he's going to be a dad this year.

No, because the Rockies aren't trading for him. so that's the only park where I would be terrified. The other park where... The pitcher side. The Great American Ballpark, Homer, the Reds aren't doing it. So, yeah. There's no realistic extreme hitter threat. What if he went

to the Giants and it hurt his power a little bit? It would give me more confidence in the ratios. Oh, my God. Being close to what he just did. And maybe as a pitcher, he would just, could he do better than a.233 ERA? That's, I wouldn't expect that. But it's amazing.

And easily still a first-round pick, even a weekly. If he could play all right in San Francisco, he has a 17% barrel rate and 119 max EV. He has really, really great raw power. This is the best athlete in baseball today. And this is a guy who could hit splash hits down the line like Barry did, and then he also has that right center power, which I don't think will end up, not right center power, oppo center power. That's not going to end

up in Triples Alley. You know, that's more pull side. So he's going to hit it out, you know, in left field as opposed to right field a lot of times. And I don't think he'll get, like, you know who got screwed by Triples Alley was Brandon Bell. I mean, he probably left 100 homers on the table compared to playing somewhere else. Yeah, that's an interesting thought.

There's a handful of other teams where you could definitely see them having the prospects necessary to pull it off. And it's only for one year, but I assume the team that trades for him also makes the move to go ahead and give him a boatload of money to extend him to. It's probably not a, we're giving you a bunch of prospects

and then we're going to miss out on him for the next seven or eight years. I kind of think it's a A plus B for whoever ends up. And even if it doesn't happen right away, it'll be like, yeah, come here and fall in love. Yep. I think you're exactly right about that. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself.

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Bryce Harper is a UT-only player, and it's further complicated by the surgery he's going to have, right? So, elbow surgery on schedule for Wednesday, tomorrow, November 23rd. And at the time this was first reported, Dave Dombrowski said he was unsure if it's going to be Tommy John or another type of procedure to repair the tear in Harper's UCL. But by most accounts, Harper's going to miss several weeks to begin the 2023 season. That appears to be the most likely outcome at this point, does it not? Yes, I'm trying to find what i saw here john rogale uh who does tj surgery uh analysis he is at mlb player a n a l y s um he's got a whole database of Tommy John, uh, surgeries. He says, uh, if he, if he's a regular UCL construction, it's sort of six to eight months.

Uh, there's a new thing called an internal brace, um, where they kind of, they just, they leave a brace in there. Uh, and it can, it can, that's, I think what, uh, Tyler Glassnow did and it can kind of it can kind of speed up the process but it in this case John says it's the same time frame so looks like 6-8 months you're hoping that you don't hear anything about TJ

or internal brace and it's something lesser of a clean up but if it's 6-8 months that's a little rough dude. He only earned $15 by this auction calculator last year because of all the time he missed

and I can't imagine he does any better next year. You're talking about coming back in June or July. Right. Even if everything goes well he's feeling great, and we saw it in the postseason, that's a long time to wait

in leagues with no IL spots. That's a very challenging proposition to manage your roster for multiple months without one of your players. It's just a very tough thing to do. I don't know if I'll have a lot of Harper in 2023.

Hopefully we'll get some clarity soon though with the surgery coming up tomorrow. Fortunately, the UT only players, it seems like this group is a little smaller than we're accustomed to. JD Martinez still fits into this bucket. It was a $12 season from him. I do wonder if there's going to be one more good JD Martinez season in these next few years before he calls it a career. He's 35 now, 596 plate appearances. To me, it's kind of a big number for him in 2022, just given some of the concerns people have had about his durability. But look back at what he's done since 2018, over 600 on three occasions, the 596 in 2022, and the 60-game season in 2020, he played 54 out of 60 games.

So he's become a little more durable with the heavier DH tilt to his playing time. Unfortunately, he still has a right center, you know, bat path. He's actually a righty, so it's right center. He still has that oppo center bat path. He's actually a righty, so it's right center. He still has that oppo center bat path. And I know that Tommy Phan, both publicly and privately to me,

has been talking about, like, I need to become a pull side barrel hitter because oppo home runs are dead. And we talked about this on this podcast how oppo home runs are down twice as much as pull home runs and I also know that Tommy Pham is a guy who talks about these sort of things with the other hitters

on his team so I would not I would bet 100% that he's talked to J.D. Martinez about this phenomenon and that J.D. Martinez is thinking about it. But the problem is that trying to go from the approach that J.D. Martinez

has where he's letting it travel and that has allowed him to keep his strikeout rate down and hit to all fields and his batting average on balls and play up. He's a.342 Babbitt for his career. This is related because he's basically a spray hitter with power.

And so if you change your approach and you say, I'm going to get that ball out front, I'm going to pull it, you could expect him to strike out 27% to 28% of the time, lose that Babbitt because now he's pulling uh into more defensible players play places on the field uh and be more of a 250 25 homer hitter well either way he's projected right now to be a 250 20 homer hitter so maybe at this point in your career you say i i want another contract i'm gonna i'm gonna go for the pull side homers and see what happens there. So, you know, I think he'll get a one-year sort of pillow deal from somebody, and we may see a different approach

when he comes back. If he does the same approach, though, I think it's going to limit his power. I don't think he's going to hit more than 20 homers, maybe 22 or something, with this approach. Pick 240 is where JD is going in early drafts. Tempting in that range because he could be the player he was last season and you'd be fine. If it's high teens in the home run count and maybe a few more runs in RBIs to go with a good average, you could live with that in that range. No positional value. and RBIs to go with a good average, you could live with that in that range.

No positional value, and that's something we haven't really talked about in terms of strategy. When you take one of these util-only guys, you're not really helping yourself anywhere positionally. But in a way you are, because you're pushing everybody else around, right? So you put the guy at util, then your sixth outfielder becomes a bench player.

You are creating some versatility. If you could pair him at 240, can you just glance around 240 and a little bit lower, some multi-eligible guys? Yeah, Gavin Lux, second in outfield. Christopher Murrell, Luis Urias, second yurias second that's a really interesting one morel and jd martinez right you could you could shore up a lot of positions and and have a high floor so martinez is your high floor util guy and morel is your high ceiling uh uh util guy but like you know actually util like like multi. Yeah. Uh, that's a really interesting pairing, I think, uh, because Morel's, uh, all of Morel's flaws are the things

that Martinez does well too. You know, like, it's almost like if you could push them together into one player, you'd have a superstar young player. Uh, so I, I think that's a really interesting pairing right there. Morel, Morel and. Martinez for two of your last three hitters is not terrible. Nelson Cruz finally, finally, finally, finally didn't come through and provide that value that we were expecting

in 2022. Did he officially retire or is that just an expectation that he's going to retire? I would expect it. I don't think I've seen an actual announcement or anything yet, but I'm probably going to play, try to play in the World Baseball Classic maybe, and then call it.

Yeah, yeah. Like if he has like a great WBC, maybe he gets approached with an offer or something. But 42 years old, his projection is for basically just above league average with the bat, which at DH, there's some value there, but we know that at 33, projected bounce backs are not super believable.

So at 42, there's a lot of people on teams saying, no, we think he's done. So I don't know that I would make him part of my plans unless it was just a stash and pray situation. A little bit different is from Milray as a 27. You know, he did play a little bit better with the Cubs, walked a little bit more, struck out a little bit less, swung and missed a little bit less.

He also hit more grounders. Didn't hit for a ton of power in either place. The same, like a 137 ISO with Cleveland, 154 with Chicago. That's not the 250s that you were looking at before. I don't really have, like, a great answer for you about uh you know what his way forward is but i'm not gonna take a 27 year old that has basically uh one bad year on his resume and write him off so i'm a little bit more interested in from meal as uh as a bounce back candidate uh late in in drafts yeah and it's a handful of teams that,

even if they're not really clear contenders for this season, could take a chance on him cheap and then flip him just for a low-level pitching prospect at the deadline to a team that wants to add right-handed pop. The Reds, the Tigers, the Brewers, because they're replacing Andrew McCutcheon, maybe. They got a lot of outfielders they got to figure out. Probably could be some trades in Milwaukee this offseason.

The Rockies, can you imagine how excited everybody would be about Fran Milareas getting a chance in Colorado? Basically free right now. ADP outside the top 400 early on this draft season. Yeah, I mean, you have the Pirates. There's a lot of teams that would take a chance on him and give him some playing time, I think. Yeah, I think

you have to go further than 240. I mean, this is NFBC final hitter type stuff. And it's actually interesting in not in draft and holds as much because then you're taking the chance where he's just not

a full-time player this year and that's a real risk. But then you're taking the chance where he's just not he's not a full-time player this year and that's that's a real risk but if you were taking a an early draft right now where he was your your final hitter uh you would know in the first uh faab period if you wanted to keep him basically right like you'll know in three weeks if you want to keep him on your team or not yeah i don't think it's hard in leagues where where you can make moves, it's even more appealing. If we know where he's playing, it might be easier to make a call on his chances of sticking all season long. Not knowing where he's going, it could be a good team that wants to get a look. They might be quicker to let him go, and then you end up in that situation

where he doesn't have a job or it takes some time and it just turns into a complete mess. But really surprised that he collapsed as quickly as he did. So someone will give him an opportunity in 2023. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. A few things before we go. There is a Black Friday special happening right now. The Athletic.com slash Rates and Barrels should get you that offer.

It is a dollar a month for the first year. Best offer that we put out throughout the year. So you can get that. There are some discounts as well on gift subscriptions. They are not that same offer, but they are discounted compared to what they normally cost. So if you think about giving the gift of the athletic, this is a good time to do that too.

So be sure to check out those discounts while you can. On Twitter, you can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at DerekVanRiper. We hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving. We are off next week. We are back with you when the winter meetings begin in early December. Thanks for listening. Thank you.